Thursday, September 17, 2015

Yesterday I decided to go through my wax stash and organize everything. I'm still not done, but I figured out what I'm keeping and what I'm tossing. Excluding some JLCCW, JMae's, and my March CFTKR order, what you see on the floor is what I went through. The pile on the left is my keep pile, while everything on the right is being trashed. I considered going through the effort of doing an ass wax pay only shipping thing, but decided that these tarts weren't even worth that effort. Their quality was bad, they were old, or I just straight up did not like the scents. Or, as was the case with the contents of one box, there was a mysterious accident and there was a permanent liquid in every single bag/tart container. I think that box was in a warm place and all the wax partially melted.
It was easier than I thought it would be to do this. I think I've had this wax for so long that at this point I can no longer justify keeping it by thinking about the waste of money. At this point the money is irrelevant. The waste in buying it occurred back when I bought it. I'm not going to melt it. So.... toss it! I may keep a few things from the pile and keep it in a bag to give to my mother, but I'm still undecided.
As for everything else I have, I think I can condense everything to the purple and black photo boxes you can see in this picture. Before this my wax was spread out all over the place.

A rather sad thing I realized when I started melting appropriate scents for the season is my love of this season has become tainted. I smell pumpkin and cinnamon and I think about Diana's last few weeks with us. It's not bad enough to make me stop melting, but there are moments when I catch a whiff and feel like I should go out back and play with my now nonexistent dog. It's weird having a scent that has been ruined for me. I've always had scents that I cherished because of fond memories associated with it. Never have I had to deal with the negative side of smell and memory's link.

Have you ever thrown out this much wax at once? Do you have scents that are harder for you to stomach because of memories?

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Scent Description: A blend of strawberry and cotton candy.Weight Melted: 1.0 oz.Cold Sniff: 4/5Warm Sniff: 4/5 No difference in smell between cold and warm. Pretty straightforward 50/50 blend of cotton candy and strawberryScent Strength: 1/3Scent Throw: 4/5Melting Power: 4/5 I let this go for about 18 hours before I grew tired of the scent and changed it out.Repurchase: Probably not. When I bought this, I had thought the scent was different based off of a sampler I had gotten. There had been something almost bakery added into original tart, which was what I wanted in this. If I'm going to spend a lot of money on wax, I'm going to get unique blends, not a simple tart I could make myself. The performance was amazing, though! I'm just a cheapskate and like getting the most bang for my buck :)

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Scent Description: A perfect blend of fruity and floral, beginning with pear, green grapes,
kiwi, raspberry and peach; followed by middle notes of jasmine and lily
of the valley; and finishing with white musk.Weight Melted: 0.9 oz.Cold Sniff: 5/5 I was really craving something more Summer appropriate after my pumpkin awesomeness. I guess my nose wasn't ready to say goodbye to summer! This was exactly what I needed. Brought to mind Summer parties in the backyard, fruity drinks, and showers (this smells exactly like an old shampoo my Mom used to get in the summer).Warm Sniff: 5/5 What you got from the package is exactly what you got when melted. I like scents like that - no surprises. The thing that was awesome for me was the pumpkin from my previous melt was lingering in the air and mixed with this a little to create a perfect in-between scent. Not quite Summer, not quite Fall. The lingering scent really speaks volumes about SMT, though. :)Scent Strength: 2/3Scent Throw: 5/5Melting Power: 5/5 >24 hours. I melted this for two days straight and it stayed strong the whole time. I'm so glad I have 4 more cubes of this to use!Repurchase: Yes! This is over two years old and it still performs spectacularly! I'm impressed! The funny thing is, I've never ordered directly from TBG before. All of my stash is from destashes. So I guess this is one more thing to make me want to order from The Bathing Garden :)

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Something about the weather yesterday had me craving Fall and all its lovely fragrances. Maybe it was the fact that we're in September, as well. I don't know. In any case, I had a very pleasant time with this scent.Scent Description: A combination of Pumpkin, Marshmallow, and Coffee fragrance.Weight Melted: 2.5 oz. I was too lazy to cut it and I wasn't sure how this tart would perform since I've had it for over two years.Cold Sniff: 3/5 I got a very heavy coffee scent from this. In fact, it's like the coffee scents from Yankee candles. I didn't pick up on very much of the other notes here. This worried me.Warm Sniff: 5/5 Ah, nice, light, pure pumpkin with just a hint of marshmallow and coffee. I felt like I was having a pumpkin latte or whatever that drink is that Starbucks always sells around this time of year. The coffee wasn't very prominent, but it helped even out the scent so it was just a big generic smell of Fall to my nose. I very much loved this.Scent Strength: 2/3Scent Throw: 4/5Melting Power: 5/5 >24 hours. I put this in early yesterday morning and just now took it off as I type this. It still had plenty of scent left in it.Repurchase: Yes! You know, if circumstances ever allow me to buy anything from SMT. I've only ever gotten their stuff from destashes. Now that I've melted this and know how the performance was, I wish I had cut the tart in half. Eh, you live and learn!
Also, just from checking my labels I've found out that this is my first SMT I've melted. Very impressed! If I remember correctly this is something I got in a destash from Lauren a long, long time ago.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Does that title sound a bit scary? It does to me. It implies that there was some falling out of love. Which, unfortunately, is the truth. You can't be living separate lives for nine months and expect everything to be as it was when you reunite with that person.

Okay, you got me on the picture. In my defense I took the picture at 6 AM, before the sun was up and I had enough lighting to take a good picture.
It's not quite midnight of the last day of the month but I figured I would make one last post to say goodbye to August... and hello September. During which we will very likely be moving. AGAIN. Right as I got everything unpacked and set up where we want it to be. Sigh. Anyway...Scent Description: None available on website. Pretty self explanatory.Weight Melted: 1.4 ozCold Sniff: 5/5 I loved this on cold sniff! The pomegranate was so prevalent, with just a hint of bakery plus serendipity. Perfect, to my nose!Warm Sniff: 3/5 Unfortunately, my favorite part about this scent just was not there when I melted this. I enjoy serendipity, but usually as a mixer, and this time all I got was serendipity with maybe a pinch of something bakery. Decent enough, but again, not what I wanted.Scent Strength: 2/3Scent Throw: 4/5 It's hard for me to rate the throw as we're in a completely different setting, but I tried to translate it to how I thought it would perform under my previous rating system. I don't think I'll bother revamping it seeing as another move is coming up... sigh.Melting Power: 4/5 I got 12 hours from this before calling it quits.Repurchase: No. If this had smelled like it did in the bag I would be all over this baby, but that wasn't the case. :(

I'm trying to figure out what to write about my soap adventures you ladies want to read about, and I've got to say I'm at a loss. Do I share my finished products? My process? My supplies? My setup? My thoughts about being all science-y? There's just so much I could write about, and tell you about what I've learned! I don't know where to start! One thing I can tell you for certain is seized soap is the hardest darned thing to work with LOL!